Strange Currency

Monday - Saturday at 8pm

Strange Currency airs six nights a week on KMUW, bringing you new releases, old favorites and forgotten classics. We spotlight local and regional acts, including guests on Currency Exchange, our live in-the-studio program recorded at the KMUW studios.

Jedd Beaudoin invites you to listen 8 to 10pm Monday through Saturday as he opens up his personal music vault and lets you in.

For the third year in row, KMUW 89.1 FM and its music shows Global Village and Strange Currency are winners in the annual Public Radio Exchange (PRX) Zeitfunk Awards. KMUW was Number Two in the category of Most Licensed Station, edging out stations in New York, Chicago, and other major markets.

Listening to the thoughtful, meditative lyrics and music on John Moreland’s latest album, High On Tulsa Heat, it might be hard to imagine that the Oklahoma-raised songwriter cut his teeth in the state’s hardcore and metalcore scenes.

Mostly an American phenomenon, Phish spent the mid-1990s attempting to break into the European market. In 1997 the group played a series of shows in Amsterdam which found the quartet reaching for new musical heights. The shows are part of a new eight-CD boxed set simply titled Amsterdam. We’ll hear selections from that recording as well as from Joe Satriani’s 1989 release Flying In A Blue Dream.

We have some CDs to giveaway! Both Amused To Death by Roger Waters and Shockwave Supernova by Joe Satriani come out on Friday, July 24 and we're holding an online trivia contest to give away our copies.

Strange Currency host Jedd Beaudoin has come up with our trivia questions for this giveaway. Simply answer these multiple choice questions before 12:00 p.m. on Friday, July 31, and you'll receive a chance to win one of the CDs with each correct answer submitted.

Here's a look at the CDs... and the trivia contest form can be found below. Good luck!

Something More Than Free is the brand-new release from Jason Isbell and the follow-up to his acclaimed 2013 album Southeastern. Continuing in the acoustic-driven tradition of that album, Something More Than Free features songs about working people and those living at the fringes of what remains of the American dream. We’ll also hear selections from High On Tulsa Heat, the recent LP from singer-songwriter John Moreland.

Released in 2013 Southeastern became Jason Isbell’s breakthrough record. Newly sober, newly married and more focused than he had been in more than a decade as a recording artist, Isbell unveiled a series of songs that touched on subjects both personal and universal. We’ll hear selections from that album as well as music from Sturgill Simpson’s 2014 album Metamodern Sounds In Country Music.

The Grateful Dead kicks off their final shows in Chicago on Friday, July 3, 2015. In this article for Pop Matters, Strange Currency host Jedd Beaudoin looks at recent books, films, newspaper and magazine pieces written about the group:

In 1984 King Crimson closed out a run of three interesting and now classic albums. The short-lived quartet featuring guitarist and vocalist Adrian Belew, drummer Bill Bruford, bassist Tony Levin and founding member Robert Fripp was in fine form when the group visited Montreal in April of that year. The band’s April 17 show was recorded and released some years later as Absent Lovers. We’ll hear selections from that recording as well as from Adrian Belew’s 1993 release The Acoustic Adrian Belew.

Released in 2008 Episodes was the third album from Spirit of the Stairs and an unusual one at that. It saw the band growing from a quartet to a sextet (plus the addition of keyboardist Georgia Andersen on the recording sessions), introducing members and compositions from the band You’ll Be A Torso into the fold. It remains one of the group’s best recordings, one of the reasons we’ll spotlight it on this episode of the show, along with selections from the new Yes boxed set Progeny.

Monday, June 1: In an unlikely career move David Bowie formed the band Tin Machine in 1988 with the rhythm section of Hunt (drums) and Tony (bass) Sales and guitarist Reeve Gabrels. Bowie had already worked with the Sales brothers in Iggy Pop’s band and was forming a strong friendship with Gabrels. The band recorded two studio albums and issued one live recording during its short lifetime (1988-1992) and was an especially divisive moment in Bowie’s career.